


A Function of Time

by Inquartata (mackillian)



Series: Tessera [14]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Prompt Fic, implied impending character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 07:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19268290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackillian/pseuds/Inquartata
Summary: Mortality is inexorable, even when someone pretends otherwise.





	A Function of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: The Inevitability of Loss

Thaia doesn’t like thinking about it. She never did, pushing away the inevitability as easily as pushing open a door and walking through. But when she pushes open _this_ door and steps through, it’ll be right there in front of her with no chance of shoving it somewhere else. Anywhere else.

She doesn’t want to think about it.

She doesn’t.

She _can’t_.

She says so out loud.

“I know,” Lexi says, her voice as gentle as it was yesterday as she reassured their youngest daughter while tending to her scraped knee. “But it’s no longer a matter of choice.”

Thaia’s jaw flexes and she looks away, toward the door leading to the corridor. On the opposite wall, there’s another door, where what she doesn’t want to think about waits.

Her hands are slack.

Lexi twines their fingers together. “She isn’t going to last the day.”

Her eyes burn. Her _lungs_ burn and she’s alone again in a house of kind strangers.

Laughter from one of their daughters floats in from the hallway. More laughter joins it, and then it’s laughs from all of them in a bright wave unhampered by the door between them and their parents.

The tightness in her chest eases. This is her home. Her home that’s filled with kindness and no one’s a stranger.

“It will hurt,” Lexi says. “But it’ll be all right in the end.”

A smile tries to break free and Thaia stops looking at the door in favor of an attempted frown at her bondmate because there’s no way she didn’t pick the word _end_ on purpose.

The frown fails. So does most of the smile.

Lexi pulls her into a hug. “I’m not leaving. No one is.” Her voice is strained and has every reason to be—Lexi’s known Sula for literal centuries longer than she knew her own parents.

“Except.” That’s all Thaia gets out.

It’s all Lexi needs. “Except your father, but she’s always been contrary.”

There should be a laugh in the quiet that follows.

Thaia holds Lexi tighter. Maybe Lexi’s holding her up. Maybe they’re holding each other up.

“Go see her.” It’s advice and a plea whispered after Lexi presses their foreheads together.

She goes. The choice isn’t hers anymore.

The room Sula shares with Nomi looks no different than it did yesterday. The same artificial sunlight filters through the window. The same soothing blue and off-white quilt handmade by one of Sula’s granddaughters covers the bed.

And the same old and cranky as fuck about it matriarch rests under the quilt.

“Make yourself useful and help me out of this fucking bed,” Sula says as soon as the door closes.

Thaia glances over her shoulder.

“For the—” Sula cuts herself off with a grumble. “Standing up isn’t going to make me die any faster.”

A weight presses down on Thaia’s chest when her eyes flick back to Sula.

Who rolls her own eyes. “And I cleared it with Lexi so quit giving me that look and help me up.”

Thaia does. Her dad’s lighter than she remembers, but something else is heavy when she’s got an arm around Sula’s shoulders and realizes that she’s propping her up. It’s supposed to be the other way around.

But it hasn’t been in years.

Thaia’s almost six hundred.

Centuries to ready herself.

Yet even the waning of Sula’s body from willowy to thin to frail didn’t prepare Thaia for this.

She doesn’t want to think about it.

“Heard you had a rough day,” says Sula.

_I’m not the one who’s dying._

The laugh’s strangled in Thaia’s throat. “I’m—” Whatever stifled her laugh seizes her words and stings her eyes. She tries again because Lexi was right. “I’m not the one who’s dying,” she manages to say this time, as weak as when _she_ was once close to death but her dad still hears it.

“No shit,” says Sula. “You’re the one who’s staying behind.”

It hits so hard Thaia can’t breathe but she has to keep standing because if she falters, Sula will fall.

The door’s blurry and then somehow Sula’s standing between her and the door.

She’s blurry, too.

Sula searches her face for a moment before faded eyes that were once the same color as Thaia’s sparkle again. “Help me get to the saltwater pool.”

It’s far enough away that Sula can’t walk there on her own. It’s been five years since she could. Now she only goes in the early mornings, when there aren’t many people awake and roaming the station so no one has to see her being helped.

“Why?” Thaia asks, wary and it’s warranted because this is her dad.

Sula teeters a little and her grip on Thaia’s arms tightens. “Because I’m going to throw your ass in, Waterbug.” Then she lifts her chin, a dare for her daughter to call her bluff.

Thaia doesn’t. She doesn’t because a laugh emerges, tangled with old memories of air redolent with salt and eezo and peals of laughter. It’s her dad’s arms around her again and Thaia doesn’t remember when the laughs stopped entirely, leaving them awash in tears.


End file.
